CHAPTER XVII

RICHER THAN GOLD

There was no one visible in the Home Restaurant when Seymour entered. While talking to Cato, however, he had seen the woman unlock the door and disappear within, and now, after he had shut the door noisily behind him, he heard someone moving behind the partition in the rear. He had time to make choice between a seat at one of the two small tables or a stool at the oilcloth-covered counter beside the range. Presently she came into the room. He was seated at the counter.

That she had been crying was evident; also that she had made an effort to remove the traces. Inwardly Seymour regretted that he had not left her alone longer with her grief.

"I'll leave it to you, ma'am," he said as she came to take his order. "Whatever is easiest for you in the way of a square meal."

She murmured an apology for Gold's scanty markets, but thought she'd be able to feed him without falling back on the can-opener. Bread had been baked that morning, she told him, as she set out a stack of soft slices. But she could not speak as encouragingly about the butter's age.

Seymour liked her voice, understanding its sad inflection, and he could feel full sympathy for her wan smile. Fortunately the range was directly in front of his seat; he could study her without seeming rude as she placed a steak to broil and sliced potatoes for a raw-fry.

In the course of his intent study of her, his hope grew that something valuable could be drawn from her. With the second sip of coffee, he broke bluntly into the matter in hand. "Well, they got poor Bart at last, I see!" he remarked.

He could see that he had startled her, as he had intended to do. She looked at him sharply, as if to make sure he was the stranger she had taken him to be. For a moment he feared she was going to break into tears, but with an effort she controlled herself, evidently being no stranger to sorrow.

"You knew Bart--the sergeant?" she asked, choking back a sob.

"In a way of speaking--yes," said Seymour. "I know that he was not an officer of the Royal Mounted."

With uncertain steps she felt her way along the lunch counter.

"Not--not an officer?" she faltered. "Why, what do you mean, sir?"

"Just what I say, madam. What's more, I know that Bart's sudden taking makes you a sure-enough widow, instead of a pretended one. You have my deepest sympathy, Mrs. Caswell."

To himself, Seymour justified his seeming harshness of utterance on grounds of professional necessity; that there might be real mercy for the woman also involved, in case he succeeded in breaking through her reserve, was another consideration. Everything depended upon her reaction to this "shot" assertion. He had followed her on a hunch bred of her emotions at the imposter's bier. Old man Cato had given him a plausible reason for her showing of grief. While studying her when she stood over the range, however, the idea had come to him that she had been Bart Caswell's wife. He was prepared to be shown that the woman herself was not a criminal, even by inclination. In fact, he was predisposed to believe that she would prove essentially honest.

"You're wrong, stranger--wrong on both counts!" the woman replied. She had steadied herself, was forcing her voice to hold an even tone. Seymour could not yet be sure that his hunch was right.

"Mr. Seymour was a staff-sergeant," she went on. "The coward that murdered him will learn that to his sorrow when Russell's mates come from headquarters to avenge his death. As for my being his widow----" She essayed a little laugh that was almost too much a strain upon her histrionic powers. "I'm not saying what might have come to pass had not death stepped in; but as it stands, he was just a brave friend and a good-paying boarder."

A moment the sergeant merely stared at her; then he leaned along the counter toward her. "You'd like to see your brave friend's slayer punished, wouldn't you?"

A flash of fury lit her worn face; her teeth clicked ominously and her small, work-roughened hands clinched.

"I'd give the world if it were mine and count it well spent!" she cried. "If ever I find out who--" She checked herself, evidently fearing that she was going too far in behalf of a "brave friend and a good-paying boarder."

"Then tell me all you can about Bart, his recent movements and what he had planned for the future," urged Seymour quietly. "I'm here to get the man who killed him, Mrs. Caswell."

Probably it was more his repetition of that "Mrs. Caswell" than his declaration of purpose that suddenly unnerved her. It was such convincing indication that her denials had not been believed. She sank into a chair that stood by the front window and buried her face in her hands. She looked so hopeless that Seymour's heart was wrung with pity for her. His hunch had been right, but there was no need now to press it unfeelingly. She should have all the time she needed for sobbing readjustment.

"How come you to think you know so much about him--about us?" she asked presently without looking up.

"I know, ma'am. I am the real Russell Seymour--the sergeant whose uniform he wore."

His mask was off. He had been more frank than at first he intended to be, but, in all circumstances, he considered the temporary secret of his identity safe with her.

Bart's widow started up in her chair. "Here so soon!" she exclaimed.

"Not soon enough, though, I'm sorry to say. If the Force had planted a detachment here with the first Chinook, probably your husband would not have been tempted to hold up the B.C.X."

Mrs. Caswell groaned in her anguish. "You know--about--about that, too?"

"Naturally. How else would he get possession of my uniform? Tell me, madam; what did he expect to gather in when he held up the baggage stage? It's a cinch that he couldn't have known that my clothes were in transit."

But the little woman was not persuaded to answer at once. Seymour had to show her his official shield, which he had taken from its place of concealment in his trail pack when he stabled the horses before the inquest. He went to some pains, also, to show her that although she was an accessory after the crime, no charge would be placed against her if she helped in unraveling the latest murder.

He pointed out that, in view of the stolen uniform in which Bart had been killed, she could not hope to prevent the fatal stage robbery from being laid to him.

"But I can save his memory the disgrace of a brutal murder!" the widow cried, as though suddenly persuaded that the officer was a genuine one. She fluttered out of her chair into a more confidential position at the counter.

"Bart did shoot Ben Tabor but he had to fire in self-defense. It was his life or Tabor's; he made a brave man's choice." She paused a moment to catch a sob that seemed determined to escape, then proceeded to eulogize as best she might. "Bart Caswell was the gentlest of men. I never knew of his harming a soul before. Except for his wrong idea that the world owed him a living and his peculiar way of collecting it, there is nothing that could be said against him."

"I'm ready to be shown, Mrs. Caswell," the sergeant encouraged her.

He listened then to the old, old story of the double-cross in a new setting and with unusual variations. The First Bank of Gold, according to the widow, used considerable currency in its purchase of dust from the miners. To guard against robbery, the shipments were made in supposed secrecy by the weekly baggage stage, but the driver knew of the valuable load he carried occasionally. Caswell and Tabor had been friends in Vancouver before either came into the north country and soon after their meeting in Gold, the robbery had been planned.

Bart had "stuck" the stage at the agreed point, only to be told by Tabor that the expected $30,000 shipment for that week had been withheld. Not then suspicious, Bart had accepted the statement as fact, expressed his hope that they'd have better luck next time, and was disappearing into the brush when Tabor fired upon him. The bullet struck a silver plate in Bart's back that had been placed there to repair a wound received during a Seattle gun-fight some years before.

The blow staggered him, but he was uninjured. Turning as his friend was in the act of firing again, he had brought down the traitor with a single shot.

A hurried search of the express book showed that the currency shipment had been made. Driving the stage off the trail, Bart had examined the load thoroughly but had found no bank package. He concluded that Tabor had concealed it somewhere along the trail, meaning to get the whole of the loot for himself after putting the blame on the friend he expected to kill.

Watchful for flaws in the widow's account, Seymour seized upon a seeming one. "But if Bart had been killed in the brush, no loot would have been found on him," he pointed out. "Tabor still would have been held responsible for the currency."

"They had planned in advance," she smiled wearily, "that Tabor should report his stage robbed by three masked men. He need only have sworn that the other two got away with the bank package."

Seymour made mental note of at least one way of checking up on Mrs. Caswell's account, then asked her about the uniform.

"Your bag was the only thing on the wagon that Bart thought might be of use to him," she admitted with an air of frankness that was convincing. "He brought it here--to a room he was supposed to have been renting from me--in the half story above the restaurant. When I found him there trying on the suit, he told me about his hard luck."

The sergeant felt that the crux of the interview was approaching, but meant to get at it gradually, retaining the full advantage of the confidence he had established.

"The idea of impersonating an officer of the Mounted--was that merely to assure him a getaway for the Tabor killing?" he asked.

"Partly to delay an investigation of that by pretending to have undertaken it himself; more to help him in another enterprise he had in view up the creeks."

Considering a moment, Seymour ventured:

"Having failed in landing the bank currency, he was going after gold in the raw, perhaps?"

"He told me there was something richer than gold----"

The noisy opening of the street door interrupted. They glanced up to see Cato entering. Looking like a horrid gnome, with his long arms dangling almost to the ground from his misshapen shoulders, the ox driver advanced to a stool one removed from Seymour. Upon this he pulled himself, after giving his neighbor the merest of nods. From the odor of his breath, he evidently had fortified himself for this untimely visit with bottled courage. He leered at the widow as if he considered himself assured of welcome now that his attractive rival had been eliminated.

"'Tis a starving man you see before you, Mary, Queen of Scots," he declared. "But a starving man with a jingle in his pockets. With all the goings-on in camp, I'm rejoiced that the Home is open for serving meals that is meals."

Recalling the hope which Cato had expressed on the street a short while before, Seymour wondered how long he would have to wait for an opportunity to finish his interview. He attacked the steak that had been neglected, hoping that the old man would be too engrossed in his "chances" to notice that the meat was cold.

"I haven't forgotten that second cup of coffee, sir," the widow had presence of mind enough to offer. "If you'll be wishing for supper this evening, please come in by eight as I'll be closing early."

Seymour took this as both his dismissal and an appointment for the widow to finish. Until eight o'clock, then, he would have to wait to know what Bart Caswell had in mind that was richer than gold and was to be had on the Creeks of Argonaut with the aid of a Royal Canadian police uniform.